Good name for the new boat would be unfit to print

I asked for boat name suggestions, and the only response I got was the “Melvin Lee”. Maybe I should paint the boat orange and call it the “General Lee”. Truly suitable names for the boat, though, would cause a hardened motorcycle gang to gasp in horror and hide under trash cans. You see, the boating didn’t go so well yesterday.

Well, the boating actually went without incident, until we got the boat into the water. Then it decided to stop running. Before that moment, it would start right up every time. But when I pulled it into reverse, the engine died. It wouldn’t start no matter how hard we coaxed, begged and grovelled. If there had been an Iranian embassy in Homer, I would have spray painted “Nukes are for losers” on the boat and parked out front (the boat has full insurance coverage).

After dragging the boat back to Anchor Point, I hit the starter. It fired right up and purred like a kitten. This did not make me happy. We decided we would take the 16 foot boat down to Homer instead and at least get a little fishing in. But…the van got stuck after hooking up the boat. We worked for an hour trying to get the van loose. By then we were exhausted, and decided to just go in the cabin and drink coffee. The other fellow involved “John Allen” was also an ex-Pennsylvanian.

Today I talked to one of my friends, Gareth (his place was where the bear attacked detailed in Book 2 occurred) and he mentioned that he ran into that issue before. Turns out there is a switch that kills the engine for a split second when shifting into reverse. On older boats, this switch sticks and kills the engine for say, hours instead of a split second.